Part 117 (1/2)

”Oh, my dear master! Heaven have mercy upon us all!” was the inexplicable answer.

”Joyce I ask you what is this?”

She made no reply. She rose up shaking; and, taking Archie's hand, slowly proceeded toward the upper stairs, low moans breaking from her, and the boy's naked feet pattering on the carpet.

”What can ail her?” whispered Barbara, following Joyce with her eyes.

”What did she mean about a spectre?”

”She must have been reading a ghost-book,” said Carlyle. ”Wilson's folly has turned the house topsy-turvy. Make your haste, Barbara.”

Spring waned. Summer came, and would soon be waning, too, for the hot days of July were now in. What had the months brought forth, since the election of Mr. Carlyle in April? Be you very sure they had not been without their events.

Mr. Justice Hare's illness had turned out to be a stroke of paralysis.

People cannot act with unnatural harshness toward a child, and then discover they have been in the wrong, with impunity. Thus it proved with Mr. Justice Hare. He was recovering, but would never again be the man he had been. The fright, when Jasper had gone to tell of his illness at East Lynne, and was mistaken for fire, had done n.o.body any damage, save William and Joyce. William had caught a cold, which brought increased malady to the lungs; and Joyce seemed to have caught fear. She went about, more like one in a dream than awake, would be buried in a reverie for an hour at a time, and if suddenly spoken to, would start and s.h.i.+ver.

Mr. Carlyle and his wife departed for London immediately that Mr. Hare was p.r.o.nounced out of danger; which was in about a week from the time of his seizure. William accompanied them, partly for the benefit of London advice, partly that Mr. Carlyle would not be parted from him. Joyce went, in attendance with some of the servants.

They found London ringing with the news of Sir Francis Levison's arrest.

London could not understand it; and the most wild and improbable tales were in circulation. The season was at its height; the excitement in proportion; it was more than a nine days' wonder. On the very evening of their arrival a lady, young and beautiful, was shown in to the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle. She had declined to give her name, but there arose to Mr. Carlyle's memory, when he looked upon her, one whom he had seen in earlier days as the friend of his first wife--Blanche Challoner.

It was not Blanche, however.

The stranger looked keenly at Mr. Carlyle. He was standing with his hat in his hand, on the point of going out. ”Will you pardon this intrusion?” she asked. ”I have come to you as one human being in need comes to crave help of another. I am Lady Levison.”

Barbara's face flushed. Mr. Carlyle courteously invited the stranger to a chair, remaining standing himself. She sat for a moment, and then rose, evidently in an excess of agitation.

”Yes, I am Lady Levison, forced to call that man husband. That he has been a wicked man, I have long known; but now I hear he is a criminal. I hear it, I say, but I can get the truth from none. I went to Lord Mount Severn; he declined to give me particulars. I heard that Mr. Carlyle would be in town to-day, and I resolved to come and ask them of him.”

She delivered the sentences in a jerking, abrupt tone, betraying her inward emotion. Mr. Carlyle, looking somewhat unapproachable, made no immediate reply.

”You and I have both been deeply wronged by him, Mr. Carlyle, but I brought my wrong upon myself, you did not. My sister, Blanche, whom he had cruelly treated--and if I speak of it, I only speak of what is known to the world--warned me against him. Mrs. Levison, his grandmother, that ancient lady who must now be bordering upon ninety, she warned me. The night before my wedding day, she came on purpose to tell me that if I married Francis Levison I should rue it for life. There was yet time to retract she said. Yes; there would have been time; but there was no will. I would not listen to either. I was led away by vanity, by folly, by something worse--the triumphing over my own sister. Poor Blanche! But which has the best of the bargain now, she or I? And I have a child,”

she continued, dropping her voice, ”a boy who inherits his father's name. Mr. Carlyle, will they condemn him?”

”Nothing, as yet, is positively proved against him,” replied Mr.

Carlyle, compa.s.sionating the unhappy lady.

”If I could but get a divorce!” she pa.s.sionately uttered, apparently losing all self-control. ”I might have got one, over and over again, since we married, but there would have been the expose and the scandal.

If I could but change my child's name! Tell me--does any chance of redress remain for me?”

There was none, and Mr. Carlyle did not attempt to speak of any. He offered a few kind words of sympathy, very generally expressed, and then prepared to go out. She moved, and stood in his way.

”You will not leave until you have given me the particulars! I pray you, do not! I came trustingly to you, hoping to know them.”

”I am waited for, to keep an important engagement,” he answered. ”And were my time at liberty, I should decline to tell them to you, on my own account, as well as on yours. Lay not discourtesy to my charge, Lady Levison. Were I to speak of the man, even to you, his name would blister my lips.”

”In every word of hate spoken by you I would sympathize; every contemptuous expression of scorn, cast upon him from your heart, I would join in, tenfold.”

Barbara was shocked. ”He is your husband, after all,” she took leave to whisper.